MCUs with Integrated Smart Analog for Energy Metering

Texas Instruments, Inc. (TI) announced a new series of MSP430™ industrial microcontrollers (MCUs) integrated with smart analog for high accuracy, precision and cost savings. The MSP430i204x MCUs meet the broad temperature range requirements from -40 to 105 degrees Celsius needed for industrial and smart grid applications. The new MSP430 i-series MCUs are ideal for a variety of cost-sensitive industrial segments including occupancy sensors, remote temperature and pressure transmitters, power monitoring, and many more.

The new MSP430i204x industrial MCUs contain integrated smart analog, including up to four integrated sigma delta analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) that provide accuracy and precision down to 1 percent in smart metering products across a 2000:1 dynamic range. The MSP430i204x MCUs also include an internal digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) that eliminates the need for an external crystal. Small package sizes enable designers to reduce board space and lower system costs, while increasing accuracy.

Developers porting to the new MSP430i204x industrial MCUs can scale their designs to include 16 or 32 KB flash memory and integrated analog such as sigma-delta analog front ends (AFEs). Texas Instruments also offers three comprehensive TI Designs with schematics, block diagrams, bill of material (BOM), design files and test reports to help developers start their embedded server power metering and smart power strip designs. These complete industrial reference designs incorporate TI’s complementary TPS54060 step-down (buck) converter. In addition, developers can leverage TI’s SimpleLink(TM) Wi-Fi CC3200 wireless MCU to enable industrial designs to communicate with other connected devices or TI’s DAC8760 family of digital-to-analog converters (DACs) for 4-20mA current loop industrial sensor applications to further reduce board space and lower system costs, while maintaining high accuracy in their designs.

MSP430i2040 MCUs with 16 KB flash are available immediately in production quantities for $1.70 USD in 1K units. MSP430i2041 MCUs with 32 KB flash are available for $1.75 in 1K units. Developers can start their industrial designs with the EVM430-i2040S sub-metering EVM for $99 or the MSP-TS430RHB32A target board for $115.